by DAVID FLINT – ANTHONY Albanese is Australia’s first hard-Left Prime Minister who openly presents himself as a centrist.
This Prime Minister is doing all he can to damage our fundamental Western alliances, starting with our vital relationship with Japan. He has always preferred Communist China and Islamic causes.
- To those conservatives who are still severely opposed to Pauline Hanson, they should remember that in politics, as in Statecraft, there is one supreme priority.
- They must remove a government that threatens the nation’s security and constitutional foundations.
He is doing all he can to undermine our shared Australian values. The very last thing the Coalition should be doing is badmouthing One Nation.
SAY NOTHING
If theLiberals cannot say anything good about One Nation, they should say nothing at all.
If the Coalition’s primary objective is to defeat Labor, the obvious strategy is surely glaringly simple.
Badmouthing One Nation will make headlines and delight the pro-Labor media, but it will reduce the likelihood of defeating what has emerged as an increasingly effective Anti-Australia Axis, something I first wrote about with Jai Martinkovits in 2014 in Give Us Back Our Country.
The ultimate electoral objective must be to secure at least 76 seats in the House of Representatives for the broad patriotic Right.
There is no need for a grand coalition between the three Parties; indeed this is probably undesirable.
All that is needed, apart from there being no gratuitous criticism of One Nation, is an understanding that whether the Coalition or One Nation forms the next government, the patriotic Party not in government will refrain from two things: supporting or moving a vote of no confidence or supporting or moving a refusal of supply.
After the next election, if the patriotic Parties win 76 or more seats, they will then – and only then – have to agree on who should form the government.
This would probably be the side which has the largest number of seats in the House. This is not assured; it is a matter for discussion and advice to the Governor-General.
Meanwhile, published opinion pollsters – beginning with Newspoll – would render a better service to public discourse if they focused on the two-Party preferred figures rather than the “preferred prime minister” metric.
In Australia, the “preferred leader” calculation is interesting but of significantly less relevance. We live under a Westminster constitutional monarchy, not a presidential republic like the United States.
A government rises or falls strictly on the floor of the House of Representatives (subject only to something extremely rare, a denial of supply in the Senate).
The preferred leader score is a media talking point, not a constitutional determinant.
There have been a number of occasions where a large number of voters preferred the leader of a Party different from the one they were going to vote for.
While this may also happen in a presidential republic, it is probably more common in those following the Westminster parliamentary system – where a prime minister is in a much more fragile and less powerful position than an American executive president.
FACADE
A president is more like a powerful elected king than the typical leader of a Roman-style republic. (Even then, when the Romans did eventually introduce a strong emperor, this was for the first three centuries under the facade of the republic.)
When Sir William McMahon was Coalition Prime Minister, many Liberal voters preferred, without ever voting for him, the style of the then as-yet untried Gough Whitlam.
Power in the Westminster system ultimately turns on House of Representatives numbers, not personal popularity contests.
If the Coalition wishes to govern, it must focus on the arithmetic of the House of Representatives and recognise that with One Nation they are natural partners in providing Australia with stable, patriotic governance.
To those conservatives who are still severely opposed to Pauline Hanson, they should remember that in politics, as in Statecraft, the supreme priority must be the removal of a government that threatens the nation’s security and constitutional foundations.
The surge in One Nation’s support has been the factor that forced both Coalition Parties to install conservatives as leaders.
It will at times in the future change the House of Representatives from being a useless rubber-stamp and return it to the original constitutional intention.
This was the tool ensuring that we have not only representative but also responsible and thus accountable government.PC
As usual David Flint has made wise comments. However how conservative really are the leaders of the Libs and the Nats? No question with Matt Canavan, but what about Angus Taylor?
Would Angus in high office be as disappointing as Malcolm Fraser was, and Angus seems the more interested in his farm. Both went to the best private schools, but did that create a right-to-rule mentally?
Malcolm was ruthlessly ambitious but gave the country SBS. Would Angus be as committed to defund SBS and privatise the ABC? Some conservatives would see the ABC as a pernicious threat to democracy.
The Liberals don’t get it….it’s the Greens who regularly get around 12% in the polls overall. In terms of preferences in the Lower House, 90% of Greens voters preference Labor. It’s manna from heaven for Labor. The Libs would do well to expose the nuttiness of Greens ideology (which seeps into government policy and toxic legislation), in order to lessen the cast-iron preference flow. Moreover, the Greens have great power in the Senate, where a small but critical number there can wag the dog. But to do that, you have to have a muscular set of principles and clear policies that get into the minds of voters well before the next Federal election. Starting tomorrow! But no, the Libs are a hapless Opposition and thus Labor will probably limp over the line at the next election and foist upon the community more controlling-Green-Leftie legislation that wrecks our prosperity.
‘ANTHONY Albanese is Australia’s first hard-Left Prime Minister’
Where does that leave Gough Whitlam?
Wife Margaret daughter of a Judge who was a NSW Liberal Party State Executive member, Whitlam QC first applied for preselection as a Liberal Party candidate but was not successful. Labor Party welcomed his application.
David, The Liberals and Nationals are just as big Socialists as Labor is, there is no real difference. Look at housing.